Over eight hours today, in another tedious LA Unified board meeting, members one-by-one pledged to forge ahead with the district’s ambitious technology program to bridge the digital divide for some of the nation’s poorest students. But for the first time, some board members signaled that the way forward may not include Apple iPads. The meeting...

As LA Unified continues distributing iPads, the district for the first time is providing cost estimates for continuing the program beyond its current end date, December 2015. And in a presentation planned for tomorrow’s school board meeting, the Common Core Technology Project committee, chaired by board member Monica Ratliff, is also revealing several possibilities for how...

What’s the reaction to the Phase 1 rollout of LA Unified’s iPad program? By one very unscientific measure, not so bad. At the request of Monica Ratliff, who chairs the board’s Common Core Technology Committee, the Associated Administrators of Los Angeles, the group representing school principals and assistant principals, surveyed schools among the first 47...

Not so long ago, students at Dahlia Heights Elementary School could receive tutoring during and after school. They enjoyed the services of a music teacher and a part-time librarian and could access free after-school enrichment and homework assistance. Teachers at the Eagle Rock school got $20,000 worth of professional development.. All those benefits came through...

Let’s say an alien spaceship somehow descended on yesterday’s two LA Unified meetings concerning the district’s iPad program. It is entirely possible the ETs would end up with the impression that the district was months, perhaps even a year away from launching one of the most expensive and high profile projects the school board has...

It’s a big meeting day at LA Unified’s downtown headquarters, with three committees convening one after another starting this afternoon. At 1 o’clock, it’s the Curriculum and Instruction Committee, chaired by Marguerite LaMotte; followed at 3 p.m. by the Budget, Facilities and Audit Committee, led by Bennett Kayser; and at 5:30 by the Common Core...

An expert in school board governance says that a censure vote is rare and has the potential to fracture a board even beyond its existing rifts. Christopher Maricle, a policy program officer and governance consultant for the California School Board Association, says the effort to publicly condemn a school district president could be an extremely divisive...

One parent wanted more counselors. Another wanted more security personnel. A student came forward with a friend and said, “You’re spending all that money on iPads. We’d prefer you spend it on nurses and librarians and can you please fix the bathrooms.” This was Tuesday night, in the auditorium of Burroughs Middle School in Hancock...

When the actor Matt Damon stood before a capacity crowd inside the Cal State Northridge student union last night, he smiled sheepishly and said he wasn’t surprised to see so many star-struck supporters in attendance. After all, he said, he was introducing the education historian and anti-corporate reform activist Diane Ravitch. Ravitch was appearing as...

Responding to incidents of iPad misuse at district schools and widespread public criticism over problems with the rollout, the LA Unified board yesterday approved setting a special meeting later this month to “publicly grapple” with iPad issues. The 5-2 vote on a resolution from Monica Ratliff, who chairs a committee that oversees the iPad initiative,...